Hello everyone, I'm a Devuan user but have been playing around with NetBSD lately, an OS that has always appealed to me due to its minimalism and clean structure, which I highly appreciate! I've been following the project for years but so far I've never been able to make the switch. I did manage to install the latest NetBSD stable release on a Thinkpad T550 but unfortunately it's proven hard to use as a daily driver so for the time being I'm staying with Linux and playing with NetBSD in VirtualBox, which is of course a shame. That said, I'm guessing many of you will have been Linux users so perhaps you guys have any thoughts? Some inconveniences that have kept me from migrating: Hibernation not working (on a laptop that's a big one!) despite having enabled Intel microcode. Unable to get Virtual Manager to run (see below). A proprietary Linux package requiring libgconf not working, despite having installed all the Linux compatibility packages (including 32bit). Could be solved by running it in a virtual machine but perhaps I'm missing something. Some odd firmware-related errors (see below) Interplay with a local Linux NFS server (am I correct in assuming NFS4 is not supported?) Establishing a VNC connection over a secure SSH tunnel to a Linux machine keeps giving me a blank screen (could be some compatibility issue, maybe something wrong with the xstartup config.. not sure. Tried it all.) XFCE 4.14 being kind of buggy, particularly the battery plugin (icon is too big, doesn't show remaining battery percentage, ignores icon theme, ignores configuration, etc). On a laptop, that's a pain. Not having NetworkManager and its gnome-openvpn plugin available (but at least I learned how to use wpa_supplicant) And then of course there's the usual annoyances that I won't blame NetBSD for but are just a result of being a hardcore Linux user. Mounting external XFS partitions (e.g. for syncing/backing up my data), not having VirtualBox at my disposal (I admit I've grown very used to it and really do depend on it for certain purposes). Not being used to the Korn shell, the Bash implementation being somewhat different from what I'm used to under Debian-like systems, etc. Yes, it all takes some getting used to! All in all, it still seems to be a bit too much of a hassle on this system to get a functional workstation/desktop as opposed to Devuan, especially if I'm going to use that system for professional purposes as well. I should give it a try on my HP Elitedesk but that being a server I'm not too keen on that, as I'm sure you'll understand. 😉 I'm posting a few screenshots of errors I encountered. The issue with libvirt is really odd. It is installed but whatever I do, I just can't get virt-manager to run. It keeps complaining libvirt is absent. At one point I even compiled libvirt and virt-manager from pkgsrc. Same result.. Do you guys have any thoughts, tips or tricks that could help me out getting it to run on a Thinkpad T550 and turning it into a functional system? Thanks! PS: my Linux setup is relatively lightweight, I use XFCE most of the time with Slim as the display manager. Virtualization, easy VPN and wifi management are important to me, though. I also rely on NFS a lot. My workstation/file server is set up to use NFS4.

Linux user and NetBSD enthusiast, hoping to migrate.. some day!

nia

we don't do hibernation (suspend-to-disk), at all, there's no option for it. only ACPI suspend (suspend-to-RAM).

you won't get very far with libvirt because it doesn't include support for things like NVMM anyway (which is best supported by using QEMU directly right now).

netneo

Thanks for your replies!

nia you're right, of course. I never use hibernation anyway, so what I meant was suspend to RAM. I didn't get that to work somehow.

nia kim

As for virtualization, ideally I'd use VirtualBox because it's pretty easy to manage. I'm not a big fan of virt-manager, honestly.

I've increasingly been looking into Qemu lately precisely because it's so portable and would solve the whole problem of relying on VB or VM. I'm not afraid of the command line anyway. Otherwise, I wouldn't be looking into NetBSD. 😉

I agree with your rant on shells. This is one of these things I never looked into much. I'm comfortable using the shell but actually tinkering with the shell itself is something I've always avoided. Something to add to my TODO list.

That said, I was lucky enough to come across a refurbished Thinkpad x250. I intend to use it as a strictly personal machine without any special requirements so I'll be trying NetBSD on that machine as soon as it arrives!! 😎

To be continued...

kim

Looking at pkgsrc/sysutils/libvirt/PLIST it doesn't look like the package provides any Python bindings -- which is what the "ImportError: No module named libvirt" error message is about.

You could try py-libvirt from pkgsrc-wip and see how that works out.

kim

And just a minor rant about shells and defaults ... 🙂

Shells have defaults on their settings for a reason: the developers have actually given a lot of thought to what the default behaviour of a shell should be. Ideally if you didn't change any settings, a shell (be it bash, fish, ksh, tcsh, zsh, or some other shell) would behave exactly the same way regardless of the system you are using it on.

Unfortunately some maintainers for some reason do not preserve the shell's default behaviour, but instead install startup files that alter the settings and thus the behaviour of the shell (sometimes resulting in even a wildly different experience for the user), either system-wide or through the skeleton files installed in the home directory of a newly created user.

In the case of bash, you'd want to look at /etc/profile, ~/.bash_profile, and ~/.profile to discover such settings. (These files can typically be easily discovered through the FILES section of the manual page of a shell.)

20-100

netneo I use VirtualBox on Windows machines at work, but on my Linux laptop, I've switched to QEMU.
Here is the script I use to start my VM, in case it could help you get started more easily with QEMU:

`#!/bin/sh

VM_DIR=/home/wrk/vm
ISO_DIR=/local/share/iso
SHARED_DIR=${VM_DIR}/shared-dir
DISK_FMT=qcow2

DEFAULT_DISK_SIZE=16
DEFAULT_MEM_SIZE=2560
DEFAULT_CPU_NBR=2

vmImage=
isoImage=
diskSize=
memSize=
cpuCount=

showUsage=
showList=
showIso=

if [ ! -d "${VM_DIR}" ]; then
mkdir -p ${VM_DIR}
fi

if [ ! -d "${VM_DIR}" ]; then
echo "FATAL: Failed to create directory ${VM_DIR}" 1>&2
exit 1
fi

daemonRuns() {
if [ -n "$(ps ax | grep $1 | grep -v grep)" ]; then
return 0
fi

return 1

}

getIsoPath() {
local isoPath="$1"

if [ "$(expr substr "${isoPath}" 1 1)" != '/' ]; then
    isoPath="${ISO_DIR}/${isoPath}"
fi

if [ "$(expr substr "${isoPath}" $(expr $(expr length "${isoPath}") - 3) 4)" != '.iso' ]; then
    isoPath="${isoPath}.iso"
fi

echo -n "${isoPath}"

}

getImagePath() {
local imgPath="${VM_DIR}/$1"

if [ -n "$DISK_FMT" ]; then
	imgPath="${imgPath}.${DISK_FMT}"
fi

echo -n "${imgPath}"

}

getImageCfg() {
echo -n "${VM_DIR}/$1.cfg"
}

startVM_qemu() {
local vmName="$1"
local ramSize="$2"
local cpuNbr="$3"
local vmSize="$4"
local isoPath="$5"
local vmPath="$(getImagePath "${vmName}")"
local qemuOptions="${qemuOptions} \
-name ${vmName} \
-smp ${cpuNbr} \
-m ${ramSize} \
-hda ${vmPath}"

# OS-specific options
case $(uname -s) in
Linux)
    qemuOptions="${qemuOptions} \
        -enable-kvm"
    ;;
esac

# Use most recent hardware (2009) as machine type.
# Enable all CPU features available on current host.
qemuOptions="${qemuOptions} \
    -machine q35 \
    -cpu max"
# Configure display adapter.
# -display gtk has a VM control menu, not sdl.
# VGA 16:9 => -device virtio-vga,virgl=on,xres=1280,yres=720
# Non-VGA 16:9 => -device virtio-gpu,virgl=on,xres=1920,yres=1080
qemuOptions="${qemuOptions} \
    -display gtk,gl=on \
    -device virtio-vga,virgl=on,xres=1280,yres=720"
# Configure network adapter.
qemuOptions="${qemuOptions} \
    -nic user,ipv6=off,model=virtio-net-pci"
# Configure sound hardware.
qemuOptions="${qemuOptions} \
    -audiodev id=pa,driver=pa \
    -device ich9-intel-hda -device hda-micro,audiodev=pa"
# Add USB support.
qemuOptions="${qemuOptions} \
    -usb"
# Configure mouse.
qemuOptions="${qemuOptions} \
    -device usb-mouse"
# Configure keyboard (Swiss French layout).
qemuOptions="${qemuOptions} \
    -k fr_ch"
# Configure shared folder (only usable by Linux guests).
qemuOptions="${qemuOptions} \
    -virtfs local,path=${SHARED_DIR},mount_tag=shared-dir,security_model=mapped-file,fmode=664,dmode=775"

if [ -n "${isoPath}" ]; then
    # Create hard disk.
    qemu-img create -f ${DISK_FMT} "${vmPath}" ${vmSize}G
    cat <<EOF > $(getImageCfg "${vmName}")

memSize=${ramSize}
cpuCount=${cpuNbr}
EOF

Configure CDROM.

qemuOptions="${qemuOptions} \
-cdrom ${isoPath} \
-boot once=dc"
fi

qemu-system-x86_64 ${qemuOptions}

}

listISO() {
find ${ISO_DIR} -name '*.iso' -type f -printf '%f\n' | sed "s/.iso$//" | sort
}

listVM() {
find ${VM_DIR} -maxdepth 1 -name '*.cfg' -type f -printf '%f\n' | sed 's/.cfg$//' | sort
}

while [ -n "$1" ]; do
case "$1" in
--help | -h)
showUsage=yes
;;
--disk | -d)
shift
diskSize=$1
;;
--mem | -m)
shift
memSize=$1
;;
--cpu | -p)
shift
cpuCount=$1
;;
--iso | -i)
showIso=yes
;;
--list | -l)
showList=yes
;;
*)
if [ -z "${vmImage}" ]; then
vmImage="$1"
elif [ -z "${isoImage}" ]; then
isoImage="$(getIsoPath "$1")"
else
echo "WARNING: Ignoring unknown option $1" >&2
fi
;;
esac
shift
done

if [ -n "${isoImage}" -a ! -f "${isoImage}" ]; then
echo "ERROR: ISO image does not exist (${isoImage})" >&2
showUsage=yes
fi

if [ -z "${vmImage}" ]; then
if [ -z "${showList}${showIso}" ]; then
echo "ERROR: VM name must be specified" >&2
showUsage=yes
fi
elif [ -z "${isoImage}" -a ! -f "$(getImagePath "${vmImage}")" ]; then
echo "ERROR: VM does not exist (${vmImage})" >&2
showUsage=yes
fi

if [ -z "${showUsage}" ]; then
if [ -n "${showList}" ]; then
listVM
elif [ -n "${showIso}" ]; then
listISO
else
imageCfg="$(getImageCfg "${vmImage}")"

	if [ -f "${imageCfg}" ]; then
		. ${imageCfg}
	fi
	
	if [ -z "${diskSize}" ]; then
		diskSize=${DEFAULT_DISK_SIZE}
	fi

	if [ -z "${memSize}" ]; then
		memSize=${DEFAULT_MEM_SIZE}
	fi

	if [ -z "${cpuCount}" ]; then
		cpuCount=${DEFAULT_CPU_NBR}
	fi

	if [ ! -d ${SHARED_DIR} ]; then
		mkdir -p ${SHARED_DIR}
	fi

	startVM_qemu "${vmImage}" ${memSize} ${cpuCount} "${diskSize}" "${isoImage}"
fi

else
cat <<EOF
Usage:

$(basename "$0") [options1] VM_NAME

starts the specified VM.

$(basename "$0") [options1] [options2] VM_NAME ISO_IMAGE

creates the specified VM and boots the ISO image.

$(basename "$0") --iso / -i

lists available ISO images.

$(basename "$0") --list / -l

lists available VM.

$(basename "$0") --help / -h

displays this message.

options1 can be:

--mem / -m RAM_SIZE (in MB, default: ${DEFAULT_MEM_SIZE})
--cpu / -p CPU_NBR (default: ${DEFAULT_CPU_NBR})

options2 can be:

--disk / -d DISK_SIZE (in GB, default: ${DEFAULT_DISK_SIZE})

Notes:

- Options can be specified anywhere on the command line.
- VM disk images are created under ${VM_DIR}.
- VM disk images use the ${DISK_FMT} format.

Examples:

$(basename "$0") FreeBSD-12.1 FreeBSD-12.1-RELEASE-amd64-disc1.iso --disk 32

will create a 32G volume for the FreeBSD-12.1 VM and will boot the 
./FreeBSD-12.1-RELEASE-amd64-disc1.iso ISO image for its installation.

$(basename "$0") FreeBSD-12.1

will run the FreeBSD-12.1 VM.

$(basename "$0") GhostBSD GhostBSD19.10.iso -m 2560 -p 4

will create a 16G volume for the GhostBSD VM and will boot the 
GhostBSD19.10.iso ISO image using 2560 MB RAM and 4 CPU.

EOF
fi`

netneo

Well... It took a lot of time, research, trial/error and testing NetBSD as a virtual machine but I just wanted to let you all know that I've finally set up a functional NetBSD system on my X250! I'm running NetBSD 9.1 with current packages and an encrypted swap+home (took a while to figure out how to pull that off and had to do some command-line kungfu to get around some stupid errors of my very own fault, but I did it!).

I'm running LXQT (+Kvantum) as a desktop since I tend to use QT applications a lot. On Linux I tend to use a bare-bones, stripped-down KDE Plasma on Linux (without those Korganizer apps or daemons and most desktop effects disabled, it's as good as XFCE for me performance-wise).

I decided to look into NetBSD again because I've "upgraded" my skills in recent times to the point where I typically set up my machines manually and write my own perl scripts to get stuff done. I ditched VirtualBox for good and don't use any type of network manager anymore. Just manually configuring dhclient/dhcpcd, interfaces, wpa_supplicant, openvpn and the likes. It feels liberating.

There are some good Linux distros out there that are bloatware-free or can easily be unbloated but overall I'm just kind of unhappy with the way things are going in Linux land and NetBSD has always been very attractive to me in that sense. Clean design, simple, very configurable. There's a learning curve to it but I figure if you want to achieve anything, you have to put in some effort. It's only a matter of "getting the hang of it", I guess. Same with Linux which I've used for years.

Anyway, many thanks for all the tips and tricks you guys have been posting on this forum. That along with the official NetBSD Guide have been really helpful to me. I'm keeping lots of notes along the way so I might be sharing some of those in the time to come. Still got lots of things to figure out, test, or get used to... Firewall, virtualization, managing removable media. Though there's NFS/SSH/SFTP/rsync etc to bypass any such issues.

It's almost as though I'm learning UNIX all over again but I guess that says something about the state of Linux these days. 🤔

My only major frustration though: what's with LibreOffice7 looking so awful? This will make me want to go back to Windows! 😅😅😅

Okay, just kidding. About it being major and going back to Windows, that is.

Cheers.

netneo I'm running LXQT (+Kvantum) as a desktop

Do report if you find any issues with it. I usually test the DE but, I don't use it daily.

netneo I'm just kind of unhappy with the way things are going in Linux land

Exactly what brought me here as well.

neubaer

netneo My only major frustration though: what's with LibreOffice7 looking so awful?

I've noticed this as well. I guess you just need to install a GTK 2 or 3 theme?

netneo

pin Thanks for your reply, pin.

I'll definitely be keeping tabs on how LXQT performs and behaves on my X250. It may take a little while but I'll do my best to report any issues I've found. My overall first impression is pretty good, though. I tested it in a qemu VM before installing on bare metal.

One thing I must say is that I've found myself consulting man pages like never before and they've been very helpful. That and the official guide & wiki + many guides on this forum. Clean and up-to-date documentation is really a major thing to me. Since I like documenting things I'd be glad to help out with any documentation or translations. Overall, I think NetBSD has been doing a pretty good job in terms of docs. The way I see it, it's a major key to success. A central point of reference makes life a lot easier.

Will be testing NetBSD on a server/workstation soon!

netneo

neubaer I've noticed this as well. I guess you just need to install a GTK 2 or 3 theme?

That was my initial reflex as well. Whenever I've encountered this with Debian/Devuan, I'd just install libreoffice-gtk3. Under NetBSD, that doesn't seem to work.

For instance, I installed arc-theme and set it as the default theme for gtk2 and gtk3 from the LXQT settings but libreoffice (version 7, installed from pkgin 9.0_current) still looks, well, Win95-ish.

I'm not sure how these binary packages have been compiled and if there's any way to beautify the interface. I did notice the libreoffice6-bin package, unlike v7 if I recall correctly, pulls in the compat_linux binaries (suse_gtk2 etc) so perhaps that should set us on the right track...

I'll try to figure out something but in the meantime, If anyone does know the answer, please do share. That said, the main thing is that libreoffice works and I'm happy with that since I depend on it a lot for productivity.

netneo I did notice the libreoffice6-bin package, unlike v7 if I recall correctly, pulls in the compat_linux binaries (suse_gtk2 etc)

That would be an awful lot of dependencies.

netneo Hmm...

netneo

pin Quite a few, yes. I only tested this in a messy VM just now, though.

Here's the output of pkgin show-full-deps (pkgin on 9.0_current)

full dependency tree for libreoffice6-bin-6.2.8 suse_libffi-13.1{,nb*} pcre>=8.30nb1 libuuid>=2.18 libffi>=3.3nb1 python38>=3.8.0 glib2>=2.64.0nb1 suse_libdrm-13.1{,nb*} suse_expat-13.1{,nb*} suse_libxml2-13.1{,nb*} suse_libtiff-13.1{,nb*} suse_libjpeg-13.1{,nb*} suse_glib2-13.1{,nb*} suse_openssl-13.1{,nb*} suse_base-13.1{,nb*} suse_x11>=13.1<13.2 suse_qt4>=13.1<13.2 suse_locale>=13.1<13.2 suse_libpng>=13.1<13.2 suse_libdbus>=13.1<13.2 suse_libcups>=13.1<13.2 suse_krb5>=13.1<13.2 suse_gtk2>=13.1<13.2 suse_gstreamer>=13.1<13.2 suse_glx>=13.1<13.2 suse_freetype2>=13.1<13.2 suse_fontconfig>=13.1<13.2 suse_dbus-glib>=13.1<13.2 suse_avahi>=13.1<13.2 desktop-file-utils>=0.10nb1

And for libreoffice:

full dependency tree for libreoffice-7.1.1.2nb1 ttmkfdir2>=20021109 p11-kit>=0.23.15nb1 nettle>=3.6 mozilla-rootcerts-[0-9]* libtasn1>=4.9 libcfg+>=0.6.2nb3 jbigkit>=2.0 at-spi2-core>=2.35.1nb1 py38-cElementTree-[0-9]* gsed>=3.0.2 lzo>=2.01 gcc7>=7.0 nghttp2>=1.40.0nb4 libidn2>=2.0.0 jpeg>=9 pinentry-[0-9]* npth>=1.2 libusb1>=1.0.9 libksba>=1.3.4 libgpg-error>=1.28 libassuan>=2.4.2 orc>=0.4.6 gobject-introspection>=1.62.0nb1 check>=0.9.5 wayland-protocols>=1.17 wayland>=1.17.0nb5 libxkbcommon>=0.4.0nb1 fribidi>=0.19.1 atk>=2.33.3nb1 at-spi2-atk>=2.34.1nb1 tiff>=4.0.3nb5 libunistring>=0.9.4 libpaper>=1.1.22 pango>=1.44.7nb3 gdk-pixbuf2>=2.40.0nb1 cairo-gobject>=1.16.0nb5 xmlcatmgr>=2.0beta1 libgcrypt>=1.6.0 lz4>=1.7.3<100 libevent>=2.1.11nb1

So it seems to me that version 7 is "native" while version 6 is a Linux build?

It's the libreoffice package that looks quite "retro". The libreoffice6-bin one looks like plain old gtk2 but doesn't take notice of any gtk themes. So they both look sort of... dull. 😅

NB: For what it's worth, I did enable Linux emulation in /etc/fstab(procfs, tmpfs etc.) but I admit I'm sort of new to this and still have some research to do...

netneo

pin Looks good! Which version is that? Mine looks grey no matter what I do. Will test again on bare metal this time...!

netneo The one in the screeshot is version 7. Is it better or, the same as yours?

netneo

pin I've tried both v6 and v7. Will install v7 on bare metal and report back. 😉

netneo

Okay, so I did a clean install of libreoffice (v7, that is) on the X250, fiddled with the theme settings (arc-dark for qt, gtk2/gtk3) and still no luck... While Gimp and Firefox abide with the theme settings just fine, libreoffice just stubbornly refuses to comply!

I checked all the settings, logged out, even rebooted, but to no avail...
Bit at a loss here. Any ideas?

PS: I'm running this on LXQT with OpenBox as WM + Kvantum for QT theming

netneo Any ideas?

~/.config/gtk-3.0/settings.inishould look something like,

[Settings]
gtk-theme-name = Dark-Aurora-Violet
gtk-icon-theme-name = Violet-Aurora
gtk-font-name = Montserrat 9

Of course replacing the names above with the ones you want.

Try clearing the cache.

netneo

pin Thanks for your help, pin.

Here's how mine looks:

# created by lxqt-config-appearance (DO NOT EDIT!)
[Settings]
gtk-theme-name = Arc-Dark
gtk-icon-theme-name = Papirus-Dark
# GTK3 ignores bold or italic attributes
gtk-font-name = Bitstream Vera Sans 10
gtk-menu-images = 1
gtk-button-images = 1
gtk-toolbar-style = GTK_TOOLBAR_BOTH_HORIZ
gtk-cursor-theme =

I ran gtk-clear-icon-cache and all but I still have the same plain libreoffice interface. Very odd.
Or did you mean something else by clearing the cache?

netneo rm -r .cache/* but, I've had issues like this with gtk-3 in the past. Can't help you much, though they went away after some days without me doing anything.

netneo

pin Thanks, pin. Still no luck, though. Strange!